reports and prices [Patch] reworked advanced-portfolio.scm

Mark Johnson mrj001 at shaw.ca
Sun Feb 19 16:43:14 EST 2006


Derek Atkins wrote:

> Quoting Andrew Sackville-West <andrew at farwestbilliards.com>:
>
>> On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 12:20:42 -0800
>> Andrew Sackville-West <andrew at farwestbilliards.com> wrote:
>>
>>> <<snipped>>
>>>
>>> I've done some more testing using different options for price source
>>> and whether to show gains or not and the report, as currently modified
>>> in my tree shows no difference between these various settings. I need
>>> to go back to an earlier version of this report and see how it behaves.
>>
>>
>> I've done some testing with the original version of the report and
>> afaict its not working properly either.
>>
>> I have an account with a purchase of fakestock on 2/8/06 at 12.35 a
>> share, ten shares. then I have a pricedb entry same day that reflects
>> this. Then I entered another purchase of 10 shares at $15.00 a share
>> two days later. Regardless of the report settings, it always reports
>> incorrect information. It reports 20 shares at $12.35 price and shows
>> total value of $248.50 (20*12.35) total money in at 273.50  (123.50 +
>> 150) and a negative gain (-6.xx% i think). Well, this is plain wrong
>> and the report should be able to pick up that price change from the
>> purchase two days later and should show a positive gain because I have
>> shares purchased at a lower price than current value. Am I right in
>> this assessment?
>
>
> IMHO, yes, this assessment is correct.

Agreed.  On the bright side:
1. It is consistently using transactions as the source of cost 
information, AND
2. using the pricedb as the source of current value.

These two things are, I believe, the correct behaviour.  The question 
comes back to automatically creating a pricedb entry for a buy and sell, 
which looks to be a reasonable thing to do.  The caveat is that not all 
stock transactions should create a pricedb entry.

Two options:
1. Perhaps, one could have a dialog asking the user (with a check box 
for "don't ask again" and an Edit->Preferences check box for this). 
2.  Those transactions that are "buy" or "sell" could automatically 
create a pricedb entry.  Those that are a conversion from another stock 
or a transfer between stock accounts should not.

Additional thought would have to be given to transactions such as stock 
splits or consolidations that change the number of shares (and therefore 
the price), but not the cost basis.

>
>> A
>
>
> -derek
>
Mark



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